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Housekeeping

Find cleaning advice from other Mumsnetters on our Housekeeping forum.

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Original poster

How do people keep their houses so immaculate when they have children?

75 replies

Sparkler1 · 12/08/2006 14:25

Just popped in to see a friend of mine who has two dds. Her house is totally imaculate, not a speck of dust and everything in it's place. Even the garden looks like she hires a gardener. Green grass with edges that look like they've been cut using a ruler, beautiful flower pots.
How does she do it?
As for our house it has that "lived in" look to it and the garden looks like a children's playground.

OP posts:

ilovecaboose · 15/08/2006 10:27

Wow it would be lovely to have a house with enough storage space and enough rooms that you could have playrooms/rooms to keep kids out of.

Ds is not allowed in our dining room alone cos computers are in there and he plays with them. Our front room is where his toys are kept and he has a small boxroom as his bedroom with some books and soft toys in so their aint enough room to keep the rest of his toys in there.

So the house is a mess. The mess from our understairs bit spreads out onto the hallway floor.

Really planning to have a clear out when have time. We have way too much crap and so our house is never tidy cos there int enough room for everything.

We do have three attics though - don't know anyone else who has that (cept obviously the people down our street) so nyh!

NomDePlume · 15/08/2006 10:48

Please don't take this as boasting, but you did ask the question.....

My house is always (or 99% of the time) pretty much immaculate (to the eye anyway). Neither DH nor I can bear stuff everywhere and dirty bathrooms (my pet peeve) or dirty kitchens (DH's pet peeve), I couldn't live comfortably in it.

I'm a SAHM, we don't have a cleaner and we live in a pretty large house (around 3,200 sqft) and I don't spend every waking hour cleaning. I spend one day a week cleaning all of the bathrooms, mopping the floors and hoovering the stairs, all the proper cleaning really, and everything else is just done as we go along. We aren't big on clutter or bits of stuff everywhere and I think that makes a MASSIVE difference, along with having furniture/fixtures that are relatively quick and easy to keep clean.

NomDePlume · 15/08/2006 10:50

BTW, I don't follow my kids around with a dustpan and brush all day....

LOL @ Evesmama's cathroom

SpaceCadet · 15/08/2006 11:04

i like to think my house looks clean and tidy most days, i have a large living room through sitting room, so toys computer etc are in the sitting room.
i keep the kitchen clean and tidy daily.
i clean the bathroom daily.
i hoover daily
make all beds in the morning.
it doesnt take long but it keeps the house looking presentable, however the 2 little ones are allowed as many toys out as they like as long as they stay in the sitting room and tidy up when finished.
the older 2 can sit in the conservatory where there is a telly, comfy sofa.
ive got 4 kids

NomDePlume · 15/08/2006 11:07

Forgot to say I have 3 kids - 14, 12.5, 4

lazycow · 15/08/2006 11:23

What I don't understand is how someone can keep a kitchen clean/tidy by doing it once a day.

Yesterday I washed up (we have no dishwasher) 4 times and my dh did it twice. This was in the morning between 6am-8am and in the evening 6pm-8pm (We were both at work yesterday). I also vacuumed my flat in the morning and it needed it again by the time I left for work about an hour later as ds grabbed some stuff off the kitchen worktop when I wasn't looking and smeared it all over the carpet just before we left.

Last Friday I spent the day at home and did a load of cooking and baking with ds 21 months 'helping') and had to thoroughly clean the kitchen twice because of flour/water play as well as wash up 8 times throughout the day (I counted - can you tell my pet peeve at the moment?) along with he normal maintenance as well as vacuuming. I swept the kitchen floor 4 times and washed it once. Yet by Saturday it all looked a tip again and that doesn't even touch on bathroom cleaning, dusting, changing beds, ironing etc.

My very small flat is always messy yet I spend what seems like inordinate amounts of time cleaning the kitchen in particular.

CheesyFeet · 15/08/2006 11:24

My name is Cath... can I go and hide at Evesmama's house when it all gets a bit much?

SpaceCadet · 15/08/2006 11:30

lazycow-when i say daily, i mean all day-daily, i load and unload the dishwasher 3 times a day, not to mention the 4 loads of washing i do each day.

poopy · 15/08/2006 11:35

I have a friend whose house is always immaculate. I know why. Her sons (aged nearly 4 and 6 and a half) each have a tv and computer in their rooms and one has a playstation, the other has an xbox.
If my DS was in his room all the time my house would be immaculate too.
Not saying the NDP makes her kids play computer games of course
at Spacecadet and her daily bathroom cleaning and hoovering ... how can you possibly find time to be on mumsnet???
My house is NOT tidy ... but it is clean. I do keep the kitchen clean. I have a cleaner who does the bathrooms and washes the floors once a week ... the basics. I probably give the bathrooms an extra clean in the weekend and hoover once a week.
Toys shoved in corners of rooms. Have tried to have a toys only area but if my children want to play when I am in the living room then I let them.
I have stopped going to a friend's house (also immaculate but she has two well behaved school aged girls who aren't there during the day) because she told my DD off for not sitting at the table when she was eating her biscuit "We DON'T walk around and eat in this house!" ... I was embarrassed, knowing full well that I should be firm and MAKE my two year old sit at the table when she is eating ....... but I really can't be ar$ed ...
But then I have crumbs on the floor and my friend doesn't . Still, I feel very uncomfortable in her house so I don't go there anymore

Bugsy2 · 15/08/2006 11:49

My house is a far cry from a show home, as the furniture is too old & scruffy but it is nearly always clean & tidy. I have serious Bree/Anthea tendencies.
All the toys stay in the playroom (which was once my sitting room) and they go in organised containers & drawers at the end of each day. The children share a bedroom & it only contains their bunkbeds, one clothes cupboard & a book shelf, so that is easy to keep tidy. Kitchen does require ongoing attention to keep it tidy, but I find if I do everything straight away, then it never gets on top of me.
The garden is mostly decking, so that is easy too & whenever I am stressed I go and hack at the plants around the edges.
I think it you keep on top of it on a daily basis then it can never get unmaneagable, but then I only have two children to cope with. Might not be so smug if I had 4!

riab · 15/08/2006 12:25

Lazycow I'm with you on the kitchen front. I washed up, wiped down surfaces and cleaned hjighchair after breakfast and did DS bottles in the steriliser.

Then I baked bread and fed DS his lunch, so another clean plus cleaning the floor.

Tidied living room at 9pm, 9am and its now a tip again.

Done two loads of washing already today

Of course it doesn't help that we're halfway through a major renovation job on the house and therefore there are toold everywhere! plus we havn't got around to the biultin storage we desperatly need.

riab · 15/08/2006 12:32

I love the idea of a kids only 'lounge' and locking the kids out of the adults only lounge?!?!?!?

Um, did you actually want to have a family or not? I know its the in thing nowadays to have a family room and a posh living room but tbh I can't stand the idea of shutting DS out of our lives to such an extent. It says 'You are too messy/small/annoying to be part of our lives'.

DS will learn to start tidying up when he is a bit older (2 or 3) but I'd hate him to be the kind of kid who has to play in his playroom and who isn't allowed to get messy in the living rom.

Mind you our ideal is a HUGE openplan warehouse with a climbing wall, paints, bikes, surfboards, roller skates, books, plants, toys, magazines, and big squishy sofa's!

Not exactly minimilism but a hell of alot of fun!

blueshoes · 15/08/2006 12:39

I have a cleaner. At most, my house aspires to be tidy before visitors arrive. Immaculate - no.

A quick visual inspection will reveal dust on the skirting boards, between the stair banisters, cobwebs around the corners, grimy sills, windows that could do with a wipe ... the list is endless.

If I go into a person's house and not find any of these sins, I think they/cleaner must spend all day cleaning and have really anal children or who are not allowed to touch anything. Those houses exist - eek!

Bugsy2 · 15/08/2006 12:41

riab, mine aren't locked out of anywhere, but all their toys are played with and stored in their playroom. They can take them out in the garden but it all has to go back where it belongs.
I don't trawl all my CDs, books, clothes, make up & jewellery all over the house, so I sort of feel why should the children & their stuff dominate the house either. We all have to live in it.
I don't see that fun has to equal mess. You can have fun without it leading to chaos all over the house.

Dunnyjo · 15/08/2006 12:41

We have a 2bed house and as long as i tidy up after myself and do the rounds i.e.clean up after b'fast/dinner and do a wash load a day and hoover once a day is enough.
Love the idea of a play room (for storage when finished playing) but i still like the idea that my boys will know the house is 'ours' not 'mine'.
The one room that is always tidy (not perfect) is my bedroom so that when i go to bed at night i have my own space and just me! (dh too ofcourse) That is one room that is out of bounds to play in apart from the fact i have a cot in there.
Now if i had a huge house and an openplan room for the boys of course the living room would be tidy but in a realistic world its not like that for many of us.

riab · 15/08/2006 12:48

A then its a family thing bugsy,
I'd hate to have to pack away the books I'm reading, the CD's I got out of the library and the files I'm working on etc into my room at the end of each day and so would DH so we don't make DS do it either. He does store most of his stuff in his room but I keep one large tub for toys in the living room plus a basket for nappies/change of clothes etc.

I have big tubs which I throw things into in each room.

MadamePlatypus · 15/08/2006 12:55

I know what you mean about water play and cooking lazy cow. Our bathroom and kitchen floors get washed several times a day, and towels at least once day. This is nothing to do with my house cleaning standards and everything to do with DS 'helping' with the washing up, cooking and laundry. Meanwhile, I think our living room floor is cleaner because I am lax about DS getting crumbs all over the place than if it was an adult's only sitting room. Spilt food and drinks need to be cleaned up, but before DS the living room could go for weeks without being hoovered or dusted. I don't think there is anything wrong with having an area where kids don't go if you have the space. Imagine being able to have breakable stuff on shelves lower than 4ft high!

NomDePlume · 15/08/2006 13:43

I do lock my teenagers in their rooms, 'tis true.

lazycow · 16/08/2006 12:28

You know madameplatypus you are right, Before DS I used to laugh at people who vacuumed twice a day and I still don't actually do that but I sometimes consider it

I used to vacuum 1-2 a week at most, nowadays it is every day and that is definitely to do with DS so maybe my flat is cleaner than it was but it is certainly more untidy

jacsmum · 16/08/2006 13:23

If you leave the hoover in the hall people will remember you as having a clean house. Apparently tourists perceive cities they visit as clean if they've seen a street cleaner. Same principle - smaller scale.

lovetoclean · 12/04/2012 11:39

I have a huge 6 bedroom house with 2 bathrooms and we keep it clean, spotless and immaculate plus organized and we clean it everyday and we have a 24 year old disabled son that lives with us and his room has to be clean, spotless and immaculate and organized and if it ain't he will let me know until I get to his room and do it. A clean, spotless and immaculate home plus being it super organized is the reflection of us. When our boys were small our home always remained clean, spotless and immaculate plus it always was organized so if we can do it with 2 boys then and now we have a disabled son and still able to keep it clean, spotless and immaculate and organized I don't see how people can live that way and rather live like it is lived in which makes no sense to us. To each its own but we rather live in a spotless, clean and immaculate home plus organized and people that come and visit compliment us on our house.

Collision · 12/04/2012 11:41

Good for you and well done for resurrecting a 6 yr old thread!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rainydayagain · 12/04/2012 14:00

I have a Child free lounge! Its not about shutting kids out of your kife or not wanting a family! Its about keeping a room for evening ( spotless, toyless, relaxing) an adult lounge is for when small people have gone to bed.
It can only be achieved in a big house, one with enough recpetion rooms to accomodate.
That's not a stealth boast BTW its what a child free lounge is about! We have a family lounge for the plastic crud and mucky paws. That way you can relax with your children as they don't mess the rest of your house up. Also as a SAHM its not like my office ( kitchen)

Maybe when they are older they can use the adult lounge, but i would guess they will hate us then :-) as teenages do.

Rainydayagain · 12/04/2012 14:01

Oh just saw 6 years old wow

2kidsintow · 14/04/2012 00:54

I compare mine to my friend's house. I feel that you can pop in on her at any time and the house will be presentable whereas if there is a knock on my door, OH goes to answer it and I run round madly scooping up cups and toys to quickly stash away. The main differences I can see are

Her oh is a neat freak and wants to live in an immaculate house. He can't abide clutter.

My OH is a hoarder who constantly leaves things lying around.

She is a SAHM to 2 school age kids and has lots of hours that she can spend cleaning and tidying. She constantly moves all belongings in her rooms and rearranges them.

I work 4 days a week (recently 5 days) and clean in small time slots, doing the best I can in the time I have. I choose to spend the rest of the time I am at home being with my children and don't have as much cleaning time as she does.

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